


Thirty-Eight Minutes

by rude_not_ginger



Category: Sherlock (TV), Snowpiercer (2013)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 13:24:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2111535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rude_not_ginger/pseuds/rude_not_ginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes was selected by his brother to be part of the Front section of the Snowpiercer before the Ice Age began.  For Eighteen years, he, John and Mary survive among the twisted caste system of the Front before the Tail begins to move forward.</p><p>Major spoilers for Snowpiercer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty-Eight Minutes

When the freeze happened, all life seemed to converge at once.

Sherlock remembered the phone call before the event. Of course, Mycroft was offered a place on the famous train. The Snowpiercer. The train that could withstand any climate, any terrain. In the event that something went wrong with the 'cold bomb', certain passengers were allowed to ride. Only a few thousand, and the British government was one of them. He could pick one other to come with him, and he selected his brother. His brother could pick one. Only one.

"You only get one," Mycroft had said, his voice low and ominous. As if there had been a question. Sherlock did allow himself to think of the people in his life. Of Mrs. Hudson, of Lestrade and Molly. He even allowed himself to think of the Woman.

Of course, there had been no real question. John Watson came, and Mary was part of the package. They were 'front riders', which meant they were allowed full use of the front section of train, all its facilities, and given certain stipends. Mycroft explained that everyone was to be separated by classes, but Sherlock zoned out at that point. John was listening; he would explain it all later. Several miles away, he could see a throng of people moving into the tail section of the train. They were free riders, fighting their way on just in case something went wrong.

Something did, of course. The whole world, frozen in a matter of seconds. Billions upon billions dead. Sherlock literally could not fathom the scope of it. He would sit on the bed in his room and stare outside at the white, frozen world, and not understand that much death.

Back in London, his mind related the world to the size of his city. It made things easier, manageable. Now, the world really was the size of a city. A moving, fast-riding city on icy rails that could never stop lest everyone freezes. It was still manageable to Sherlock. To many on the train, it was not. There were 332 suicides in the first six months in the Front section. Sherlock did not know how many were in the Tail. Mycroft would not tell him, and he was not allowed to venture back there.

Things---well, people survived, as they do. People bred. People lived. People died. Mary and John had a child. A daughter. Everyone was only allowed one, due to population constraints. Food was still plentiful, due to the small, well-designed closed ecosystems within the train. There were even crimes, which was nice. The criminals were often dull, but they were crimes.

While life was pleasurable, if immeasurably dull, for the Front section, it became extremely well-known that it was not this way for the Tail. They certainly didn't eat the food that the Front passengers ate, and they didn't receive the medical treatment. John never once took his doctor's kit to the Tail section, no matter how often he'd asked. 

"We don't even know what's going on back there," Mary said. "They could be suffering. We know they probably _are_ suffering, considering they're rebelling."

The Tail section rebelled several times. The ministers said this was because the Tail was ungrateful. Lots of propaganda came up that many of the people in the Front ate up. Mary and John didn't. But of course they didn't. They weren't posh idiots who bought themselves a Front ticket.

Sherlock noticed that the rebellions never caused a bead of sweat on Mycroft's brow. That, to Sherlock, was far more worrisome.

Things became more violent the further back on the train one went. Guards were posted around the Tail section with guns, then the entire section before the tail became exclusively military, to ensure that the Tail wouldn't move forward. Finally, mechanisms were built in Car 133 to attach to the walls of the Tail section in order to hold a person's arms or legs outside for an extended period of time in order to freeze them off. Sherlock had seen them; he'd known them for what they were. There were papers attached that had documented how long and at what altitudes limbs would be petrified outside of the train. Sherlock saw the papers once, and they vanished the next day.

"That's torture," Mary said, holding her toddler in her lap. "They can't do that! We can't let them!"

"There's no reason we can't have the Tail section up at the front with the rest of us," John agreed. "We've got the space and the food. There's no reason they're separated in the back like that. Sherlock, it's---it's _odd_. Mycroft has to do something about this, he's one of the bloody ministers on this train."

Sherlock nodded. "Do you know why we don't open up the aquarium on the 48th car?"

"It's a closed ecosystem," Mary said.

"So are they."

The train circumnavigated the entire globe in one year, but it never passed through London. Of course it didn't, England was one tiny island. But---but---Sherlock never got to see home. Never. He could close his eyes, stare up at the ceiling of his room, and imagine it. Imagine home. He could imagine it, but never see it. Never again.

The Front section had exactly one rebellion, three years into the journey. Seven people exited the train, saying they believed they could live in the snow. They wanted out of the confines of what was becoming a totalitarian society. 

Mary Watson was one of them. She hated what the world was becoming. She had to believe that they could leave the train. She left the train and promised to stand near the tracks; to lead them away from this confined life of a twisted caste system and cruelty. People in the front began worshipping Wilford, the creator of the train. Mary didn't want her daughter to grow up to be one of them. So she left.

God, the horror of one year later. Of driving up that mountain, expecting to see her waving down at them, only to see a line of seven frozen corpses. John held his daughter as he looked out the window and didn't cry. He also never spoke about the Tail section or leaving the train again.

Sherlock Holmes lost two friends that day. He wondered if it had been planned, the "Rebellion of the Seven", or whatever they were calling it. There was logic in having a rebellion of people who went outside, who froze to death in such a way that once a year everyone could see just how cold and deadly the world was outside. Sherlock didn't know if Mycroft meant for Mary to be one of the ones who died, but she was.

Cigarettes became expensive, and then extravagance, and then nearly extinct. Kronole became popular. An industrial waste produced by the engines, it produced a high similar to heroin when inhaled. It was _outstanding_. Sherlock began to spend more time in the prison lockups than he did putting people in there. Mycroft disapproved. Sherlock didn't care. 

There was another rebellion in the Tail section several years later. John's daughter didn't attend school, John taught her out of their room. She was brilliant and beautiful and looked painfully like her mother. Another rebellion several years after that. Pruning of a delicate ecosystem. Sherlock tried to think of it as cleaning out a beehive, but all he could see was people, people, people. He couldn't be as cold as Mycroft. Maybe it was because John had stopped caring, Sherlock had to pick up the slack. One of them had to care. One of them had to be human among the Front section of vapid, self-absorbed Wilford worshippers.

Everything began to repeat itself. John would teach his daughter, go to work, and sit in his room, staring out at the cold. Once a year, Sherlock would make certain he was perfectly sober so he could watch John's daughter while John was blisteringly drunk as they passed Mary's corpse and the six others who were frozen with her. Then, Sherlock would resume a life of the occasional crime solving, Kronole, and being imprisoned for days to months at a time.

It was not living. Not like London had been. But London was lost to them. They couldn't even glance at it through the window.

_"Fifteen minutes to Yekaterina Bridge!"_

Sherlock sighed. The very front section of the train partied immediately after the passing through the dangerous bridge every year. Sherlock had no interest. He took the hidden pack of cigarettes from under his bed and passed the throng of people going towards the front of the cars. During this "joyous" time, the large, empty cars usually used for meat-cleaving, executions, and other unpleasantries were empty. Sherlock had one pack of cigarettes that he reserved for Yekaterina Bridge.

By the time he made it to the car, it was completely empty. Just a shiny wooden floor, brightly lit from the white snow outside, and himself. He pulled out the pack. Two cigarettes left.

Had it really been eighteen years? He glanced at himself in the reflection of the window. His hair had wisps of grey in it, but it had been that way for some time. Large creases had formed against his eyes and in the hollows of his nose, but---yes. Yes, it appeared it really had been eighteen years. Eighteen years on a train. Fifteen years without Mary Watson.

There was a bang and a creak of the door, and Sherlock turned to see it open. A guard stepped through. Female, late forties. Sherlock normally deleted the guards the moment he saw them, they were so utterly irrelevant. Female guards, however, they were interesting. Females were often recruited for brothels in the front section, considered "assets", even pulled out of the Tail section if they were pretty enough. A female guard, well, that was unusual. She had a story.

Strong calves, that's a woman used to wearing heels, though she obviously hadn't worn them in a long time. Strong shoulders, no slouching, that's someone who has a lot of pride but---really, Sherlock had difficulty reading the guard. She didn't radiate any sort of obvious clues. Perhaps it was the mask they all wore? No, no, that never stopped him before.

The guard kept walking, and that's when he noticed it. The crease in the left sleeve. The way it bunched. The way it twisted. Not a guard.

A smile appeared on Sherlock's face. It almost surprised him, that's how long it had been since he'd smiled.

"You don't want to go that way," he said.

The guard froze. A full body freeze, the sort that was almost comical.

"There are about sixteen guards standing two cars down, ready to celebrate Yekaterina Bridge. They're all idiots, but they'll work out that you're from the Tail section faster than you'll be able to get past them on your own."

He took a step towards the guard. "You've padded your left arm with several layers of cloth, but the creasing is obvious. It's a false arm, you've had yours removed. Forcibly, I imagine. I don't think they do it any other way. All the guards in the front section have both of their limbs."

He glanced at her clothing, at the smear of vomit on her shoe. "You lured him away, because that is a men's uniform. You said you were vomiting up something unusual, and when he watched, you knocked him unconscious, took his place. You must have facilitated a rapport with him prior, otherwise he would never have followed you on his own."

The guard reached up with a sigh, slipping the mask down to catch a better breath of air. Her back remained to him, and he could see wisps of white in her curly dark hair. Naturally grey hair. Another sign of a Tail sectioner.

Sherlock smirked. "I suppose I should thank you, though, it has been quite a while since someone's managed to surprise---"

The guard turned, but it wasn't a guard. Age had changed her, yes. Creases in the eyes, along her narrow lips. A scar ran ragged across the left side of her face, and her left eye was a milky false, but god---it was her. Irene Adler. The Woman.

"Alive." It was all he could think to say. She'd been a thought. Not even a hope, not even a wish. Just a thought.

She shook her head. "And I am not even remotely surprised that you are."

_"Five minutes to Yekaterina Bridge!"_

His jaw was still loose, still staring at her, taking her in. She had no left arm. No left eye. He could see what appeared to be scarring on her neck that might've at one point been a bite mark. Evidence of a sexual attack. Sherlock's fingers curled into a fist.

"Don't insult me," she hissed. "Eighteen years in the Tail section, you don't come out unscathed. I don't need your anger. I managed my own revenge."

"Your arm?"

She _shrugged_. It was an unnervingly casual move for something so important as her entire arm. "I misbehave."

God, but, still. She was alive. The Woman was alive.

"You managed to save Dr. Watson?" she asked.

Sherlock nodded, but it felt like a lie. John was breathing, John was functioning, but John was not really alive. Sherlock could not save John again. An important part of John Watson died with Mary, and that part would never come back again.

"Did you manage to save----?" He looked away as he tried to recall anyone in the Woman's life. Anyone at all. No one had come for her in Karachi. She had never mentioned anyone when they met during his time away from London. So as far as he knew---

"There was no one else," she said.

"And now?"

"Sometimes. Never for long. The less boring ones were…pruned."

Sherlock nodded. Of course they were. Sherlock didn't have a need for people, but that was how the Woman lived. She lived through manipulation, through deviation, through misbehaving. It really was a wonder she only lost one arm and an eye throughout her time in the Tail section.

Her back was still straight, though. The Woman had not lost her pride.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"The engine," she said. "This train isn't run correctly, the people in the Tail are suffering. I'm going to fix that."

"Alone?"

"I never needed anyone before."

"And you're doing this because…?"

"Because it needs to be done."

He tilted his head. "Eighteen years, Woman. You've changed a lot."

"You haven't," she replied. "You smell like Kronole."

Sherlock snorted. "No, I don't. You're just testing to see if I'll react. You could just ask."

No, she couldn't. The Woman Sherlock Holmes remembered wouldn't just _ask_. She reached out with her good hand to take his left wrist. She turned it over, where a white mark sat on his wrist. His prison stamp. 

"All Kronole addicts in the front section spend some time in prison," she said.

"Mycroft never lets me spend more than a few months," he replied.

"Addicts in the Tail are executed." Her voice was cold, as cold as the air outside. Her fingertips were warm against his wrist, her nails long and dirty against his pulsepoint. She looked up at him, her one good eye blue and clear.

"Did you know they weren't feeding us?" she demanded.

His eyebrows narrowed. She was clearly being fed. Even with her high cheekbones, the dark circles under her eyes, he could see she was getting protein, fats. Her diet was being supplemented. She didn't have loose skin from recent starvation.

"In the first month," she said. Her fingernail dug into his wrist. It hurt, but not as much as her words. "The first month, they didn't feed anyone in the Tail section. They locked us up with nothing. No food, no water. A thousand people struggling to survive and not a scrap of food. Did you know?"

He found himself shaking his head. A month with no food. Desperation, fear. She didn't have to explain for Sherlock to imagine what happened. What the Woman must have witnessed, what the Woman might have done in order to live.

_"One minute to Yekaterina Bridge!"_

"You were once the dominatrix who brought a nation to its knees," he said. "What will you do when you take the engine?"

Because it was never a question of _if_ when it came to the Woman. Not really. She survived that month, she survived these eighteen years. She would survive the long, city-wide walk to the other end of the train.

A small, cruel smile appeared at the edge of her lips. "Make them beg."

_"10! 9! 8!"_

Sherlock thought about John Watson's vacant look, about the frozen corpse of Mary Watson, about all of the Wilford worshipers and the hatred he felt for Mycroft's plans. And the fact that Irene Adler was there, in the Tail section. She had been there the whole time.

Mycroft had to have known.

_"7! 6! 5!"_

A slow smile appeared on Sherlock's face as well. Irene Adler would bring the train to its knees. Of course she would. And it would be glorious.

_"4! 3! 2!"_

Sherlock reached out, gripping one of the hand rails on the side of the wall, and threw an arm around the Woman's midsection, pulling her close to him.

_"1! Happy New Year!"_

The train began to shake violently, as it impacted ice and snow. The announcer indicted several blockages along the pathway, dangerous, shaking rocks and ice that would have never shaken the Tail section the way they shook the Front. Sherlock held onto the Woman tightly with one arm and the side of the train with the other. The bulbs in the artificial lights above them burst with the force of the cabin shaking.

The Woman wrapped her good arm around his neck and held him. She didn't appear afraid.

_"Impact!"_

Sherlock had never been able to read the Woman. He had seen her there, standing nude before him in her home, and he couldn't read her. And she stood in Mycroft's home, losing to him, and he couldn't read her. And she stood while he saved her in Karachi, and he couldn't read her. And she stood before him in Montenegro while he was "dead" to the world, and he couldn't read her. Now here, on the Snowpiercer, on Yekaterina Day, in his arms, he could read so many things.

He saw a homemade axe coming down on her face eighteen years ago, taking out half of her face and one of her eyes, but the swing was meant for someone at least three feet smaller than her. He saw the stitches that held her skin closed were made of repurposed twine. He saw the sections of hair from the front of her head were shorter, that her hair had been cut, probably sold for material or favors. He saw the bite mark on her neck was seven years old. He saw the burn scar from her arm loss went up her neck, and it was six years old. He could see from the length of the scar that it was an extended burn. It probably took place over the Sahara, which meant that the time her arm was outside until petrification was thirty-eight minutes. And he knew that the Woman did not scream.

" _Safe passage,_ " the announcer called out. 

In the car in front of them, Sherlock could hear the rejoicing partiers. "Wilford bonzai!" they shouted. Idiots, all of them. They would deserve whatever the Woman would give them. They would deserve all of it.

Sherlock released the Woman's waist and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. There were two left. He placed one between his lips, and he offered her the other.

Her eyes widened. "I thought they were extinct."

"In a moment," he said. "They will be."

He lit his. Her hand was shaking as he lit hers.

"I know the combination to every door but the engine room," he said.

She took a drag. "I don't need your help."

"But you like having people there exactly when you want them," he said. He let out a breath of the smoke. It flew into the empty room, curling in the white light from the snow. "Right now, I am here, if you want me. I'd be honored."

The train went through the tunnel after Yekatarina bridge. The cabin was completely dark. Completely dark, apart from two tiny, red embers, glowing in the cold.


End file.
